The Cork Mother Jones Committee is proud to present the 1954 documentary Salt of the Earth at this year’s Festival. It will be shown on Thursday 27th July 2023 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, beginning at 11:00 am.
Salt of the Earth is the story of a strike which is based on a 1951 strike in New Mexico.
Deemed “culturally significant” by the US Library of Congress,it is now preserved in the National Film Registry.
On its release in 1954, the American Legion called for a nationwide boycott, it was denounced in the US House of Representatives, investigated by the FBI and the film set was attacked by vigilantes. As its writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert J Biberman and producer Paul Jarrico were all blacklisted in Hollywood in the McCarthy campaign against Communism, Salt of the Earth itself was also blacklisted and many cinemas refused to show it..
Due to financial constraints, a few professional actors such as Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza Quintero (later deported to Mexico). Will Geer played the Sheriff, he was a socialist, a comrade of Woody Guthrie to whom he introduced Pete Seeger. (he is better known to Irish audiences as Grandpa in the Waltons). They were joined by miners from Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter workers. and their families in the cast. Juan Chacon who played Ramon Quintero was a union local official.
The blunt and austere realism of the strike is full on and direct in some emotional and powerful scenes. Crucially it embraces a unique feminist approach to union politics which was rare in the early 1950 cinema. The wives, family and widows of the miners rally to offer hope for the future of migrant workers.
The earlier efforts of Mother Jones to assist the Mexican trade unions and support the Mexican Revolution is especially relevant
In spite of production difficulties and the quality, this film remains long in one’s mind due to its honesty, its realism and the common human story of labour injustice it displays as the participants strive to tell the story of the union activists and the strike.
Even the biblical origins of its title, Salt of the Earth did not prevent its condemnation in some quarters as communist propaganda. Yet its message lives on as a brave political statement in opposition to the rampant McCarthyism which prevented progressive film making, culture and the arts in America. That it survives and endures almost 70 years later is testament to the everlasting story of workers organising to fight injustice.
Salt of the Earth will be shown on Thursday morning 27th July 2023 at 11:00 am at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon followed by a discussion. Running time 90 minutes.